While crèche closures are necessary to contain the spread of Covid-19, the Department of Children must put measures in place to assure staff, parents, and providers, so they are not left in "serious financial difficulty".
This is the view of Sinn Féin Galway West TD, Mairéad Farrell, who is calling on the Department to increase the Sustainability Fund for the sector, so as to further support services which may be impacted negatively by closures. She is also calling on the Department to review case management processes, and to expedite that process, in order to release funding to service.
"This fund should be used to ensure services are sustainable and that staff have a viable wage," she said. "The case management process must also ensure that measures taken will have no negative impact on quality, such as by reducing staff numbers to an absolute minimum for example."
She is further calling on the Department to "take into account" the difficulties that crèche and school closures "will present to working parents" who are now currently without childcare.
"Given the financial stress this will cause families," she said, "I implore the Government to consider a subsidy to be paid to working parents, such as a doubling of child benefit payment that could contribute towards the following months’ crèche fees for example.
"There will be many lone parents who will not have a partner at home to rely on for assistance if they are expected to work from home. This cohort of working parents must also be factored into the Departments’ emergency plans.”
